My Recent Reflections
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Teachers cannot restrict their attention to the classroom alone, leaving the larger setting and purposes of schooling to be determined by others. They must take active responsibility for the goals to which they are committed and for the social setting in which these goals may prosper. If they are not to be mere agents of the state, of the military, of the media, of the experts and bureaucrats, they need to determine their own agency through a critical and continual evaluation of the purposes, the consequences, and the social context of their calling.
Introduction
We must be careful here that teachers' involvement in matters beyond the boundaries of their classrooms does not make excessive demands on their time, energy and expertise, diverting their attention from their core mission with students. In some circumstances, creating more opportunities for teachers to participate in school-wide decisions about curriculum, staffing, instruction and so on, can intensify their work beyond the bounds of reasonableness and make it more difficult for them to accomplish their primary task of educating students.
It does not have to be this way, but care needs to be taken that teacher empowerment does not undermine teachers' capacities. A fourth and closely related aspect of much of the work on reflective teaching is the focus on facilitating reflection by individual teachers who are to think by themselves about their work. There is still very little emphasis on reflection as a social practice that takes place within communities of teachers who support and sustain each other's growth.
The challenge and support gained through social interaction is important in helping us clarify what we believe and in gaining the courage to pursue our beliefs. More research in the last decade using a socio-cultural lens has focused on the importance of communities of practice in teacher learning eg. One consequence of the focus on individual teacher reflection and the lack of attention by many to the social context of teaching in teacher development has been that teachers come to see their problems as their own, unrelated to those of other teachers or to the structures of schooling.
Thus we saw the widespread use of such terms as "teacher burnout" which directed the attention of teachers away from a critical analysis of schools and the structures of teachers' work to a preoccupation with their own individual failures. A group of activist teachers in the Boston area argued some time ago that: Teachers must begin to turn the investigation of schools away from scapegoating individual teachers, students, parents, and administrators, toward a system-wide approach.
In summary, when we examine the ways in which the concept of reflection has been used in teacher education we find four themes that undermine the potential for genuine teacher development: All of these things create a situation where there is merely the illusion of teacher development of teacher empowerment. It is not inevitable that efforts to foster teacher reflection will reinforce and strengthen the subservient position of teachers. There are examples in a number of countries of efforts by teacher educators to encourage the reflection of student teachers which focus on the ends as well as the means of teaching, which include attention to the social conditions of schooling as well as to teaching, and which emphasize reflection as a social practice within communities of teachers.
These examples support the genuine development and empowerment of teachers to play important roles in school reform eg. One example of this work is a focus on helping prospective teachers understand the reasons and rationales that underlie different choices that have been made in the classrooms in which they have completed their field experiences, to encourage their cooperating teachers talk with them about their thinking about what they do and would like to do, and to talk about how they have adapted instruction to meet the varied needs of their learners eg.
Even when student teachers are not able to act on the results of their analyses student teachers are able to gain a level of awareness that helps them see possibilities, that helps them see that what is, is not inevitable and that it reflects particular biases. All of this is good. I want to argue though that even if teacher development is genuine and not a fraud, that there is another consideration that needs to be taken into account in examining reflection in teacher education.
Reflective teacher education which fosters genuine teacher development should only be supported in my view if it is connected to the struggle for greater social justice and contributes to the narrowing of the gaps in the quality of education available to students from different backgrounds in every country of the world. Just as the case with teacher reflection, teacher development and empowerment should not be viewed as ends in themselves. Even when reflection is used as a vehicle for genuine teacher development, it is often seen as an end in itself, unconnected to broader questions about education in democratic societies.
It is often stated or implied that if teachers reflect about what they do they will necessarily be better teachers. Kemmis has argued that reflection is inevitably a political act that either hastens or defers the realization of a more humane, just and decent society.
- Self-reflection and academic performance: is there a relationship??
- Valuing Reflection.
- Services on Demand?
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- Chapter 12. Learning Through Reflection?
All teaching actions have a variety of consequences which include 1 personal consequences- the effects of teaching on students' social and emotional development and social relationships; 2 academic consequences- the effects of teaching on students' intellectual development; and 3 political consequences- the cumulative effects of school experience on students' life chances.
In my view, reflective teacher education needs to address all of these dimensions, and it should not be supported unless it makes a contribution to the making of a better society for everyone's children. What does this mean in practical terms for those of us who prepare teachers?
First, we need to recognize that reflection by itself means very little. All teachers are reflective in some sense. It is important to consider what we want teachers to reflect about and how.
Learning Through Reflection
A number of different conceptual frameworks have been developed over the years in several countries to describe different ways to define the focus and quality of reflection. Connecting teacher reflection to the struggle for social justice that exists in all countries today does not mean only focusing on the political aspects of teaching.
Teachers need to know the academic subject matter they are responsible for teaching and how to transform it to connect with what students' already know to promote greater understanding. They need to know how to learn about their students-what they know and can do, and the cultural resources that they bring to the classroom. Teachers also need to know how to explain complex concepts, lead discussions, how to assess student learning, manage a classroom and many other things.
Connecting teacher reflection to the struggle for social justice means that in addition to making sure that teachers have the content and pedagogical background needed to teach in a way that promotes student understanding rejecting a transmission model of teaching that merely promotes rote repetition , we need to ensure that teachers know how to make decisions on a daily basis that do not unnecessarily limit the life chances of their pupils, that they make decisions in their work with greater awareness of the potential political consequences of the different choices that they make.
While education actions by teachers within schools obviously cannot solve societal problems by themselves, they can contribute to the building of more just and decent societies. The most important point is that teaching can never be neutral. Teachers must act with greater political clarity about whose interests are served by their daily actions. They may not be able to change some aspects of the situation at present, but at least they will be aware of what is happening.
Self reflection
In summary, in this paper I have attempted to briefly identify some of the dominant trends over the last 30 years in both the rhetoric and practice surrounding the concept of reflection in teacher education. Today, 25 years after the publication of Donald Schon's The reflective Practitioner, there is still much work going on in teacher education all over the world that is focused on the idea of preparing reflective teachers.
Recent research has shown the importance of carefully structuring and scaffolding the reflections of student teachers through such things as the development of reflective tasks rather than just telling student teachers to go off and reflect with little guidance eg. Models of student teacher supervision have shifted to focus more directly on fostering teacher learning and reflection than on the summative assessment emphasis in the past Pajak, Research has also shown the importance of teacher educators modeling the kind of thoughtfulness and praxis that they expect from their student teachers Loughran, In recent years, the rational approach to reflection largely based within the USA on the work of John Dewey has been challenged by a variety of scholars like Fred Kothhagen in the Netherlands who have focused more in the spiritual and intuitive aspects of refection and teacher learning eg.
Here at Preen, we're fully aware that adult life doesn't always go as smoothly ( and look as beautiful) as curated Instagram feeds. We all face. Reflection involves linking a current experience to previous learnings (a . One of the strengths in my work is my capacity to stay immersed in the work of others.
There has also been a wide consensus among scholars that stage theories of teacher reflection that seek to help student teachers transcend reflection about technical issues of teaching so that they can focus exclusively on the social and political aspects of teaching are misguided eg. Despite all of these and other developments in the work on teacher reflection, there is still much conceptual confusion in my view about what people actually mean by the term reflection-whether they are attempting to promote a genuine kind of teacher learning that moves beyond the compliant implementation of external directives, and even if the teacher learning aimed for is genuine, whether there is a link in their efforts to struggles within and outside of education to bring about a world with greater social justice for everyone.
In recent years, deprofesionalization of the work of teachers has intensified in many countries throughout the world in response to pressures from neo-liberal and neo-conservative policies and the very idea of public education is in doubt in many places eg. Given the political and economic situation in much of the world today it is very easy for teacher reflection to merely become a tool to more subtlety controlling teachers.
The real challenge for us is to work against the grain and make our work in teacher education contribute to a lessening of these destructive tendencies and to connect what we do in our teacher education classrooms to struggles of educators and citizens everywhere to move us closer to a world where everyone's children has access to the means and conditions that will help them lead productive and rewarding lives.
Setting the Tone for Reflection
It is my belief that unless we make our work part of this broader struggle, reflective teacher education is not worthy of our support. Unfortunately in my view, most of the rhetoric about reflection in teacher education today, even after all of the critiques, fails to incorporate the kind of social and political analysis that is necessary to see and then to challenge the structures that continue to undermine the achievement of our noblest goals as educators.
I am optimistic though that teacher educators will rise up to the challenge and ensure that the goal of reflection in teacher education does not help to unconsciously reproduce the status quo. The goal of working for social justice is a fundamental part of the work of teacher educators in democratic societies and we should never compromise on anything that will help us make progress toward its realization. The concern of teacher educators must remain normative, critical, and even political. Neither the teachers colleges nor the schools can legislate democracy. But something can be done to empower teachers to reflect upon their own life situations, to speak out in their own ways about the lacks that must be repaired, the possibilities to be acted upon in the name of what they deem to be decent, humane and just.
Promoting reflection in professional courses: Studies in Higher Education , v. The year is coming to an end, so let's talk about reflection. There's a quote I like by Ralph Waldo Emerson- "In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards discovered that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us. All our days are so unprofitable while they pass, that 'tis wonderful where or when we ever got anything of this which we call wisdom, poetry, virtue.
We never got it on any dated calendar day. What he's saying is that while our lives may seem uninteresting at the moment, there's much to be gained from the experiences we have every day. And it is when we take time to reflect--to look back on a day, week, or year and harvest all that valuable "stuff"- that our lives are truly enriched. Reflection is a deeper form of learning that allows us to retain every aspect of any experience, be it personal or professional--why something took place, what the impact was, whether it should happen again--as opposed to just remembering that it happened.
It's about tapping into every aspect of the experience, clarifying our thinking, and honing in on what really matters to us. From a brain science perspective, it adds neural circuitry to your brain and expands the cerebral cortex by anchoring and deepening your experiences into learning. In layman's terms, you squeeze more benefit out of each day. Even the seemingly mundane can become great sources of ideas , provide a plethora of data to fuel personal growth, and facilitate the development of new skills. Squeezing more benefit out of each day sounds great, but who has the time to stop and reflect?
You have 91 emails waiting for a response tonight and a meeting at 7: There was a study done where women mainly wanted to be in groups of women while men mainly wanted to be in groups with both men and women thank you Charlotte Scherping Larsson! It seems according to both Kerstin and Irina that men seemed to have a more transactional agenda when it comes to learning a language especially when talking to women.
Women have been expected to hold higher standards than men and are socialized to not talk about their achievements. This is very telling to me that women face a very different standard of achievement than men do. Teachers, according to Elisa Polese, are often expected to be human dictionaries rather than to know how to help you to learn the language.
That is clearly impractical as no one knows every word in any language.
Women In Language: My Reflections
A large subset of men tend to be intimidated by smart women which is very unfortunate. That is very sad because there is beauty in all people. There are many women in language fields but it seems like many of the public figures in the industry are male. How women treat other women in the language field —. Pay gaps in the language field —.
The same is true for when women learn languages. Women are doubted and questioned much more for their skills and competence than men are, even if the men in question are less competent than the women in question. In short, this was not only an enthusiastic and energetic conference but a profound one. I think that was a more valuable lesson than any language learning advice and strategies. As for the language talks, I was so inspired by each and every one of them and want to connect with as many people in the Women in Language community as I can.
Lastly, I want to thank everyone who attended, presented, or facilitated in this conference for their participation.
Sign in Get started. I think we could see a lot more positive change in the way that women are seen and the way that the positions women occupy in certain fields and in language as well like the more managerial positions if women can help each other especially because language is a female dominated field. Part of the responsibility also lies with the women to start helping each other. Girls have catfights and boys just share their opinions. And we figured out that maybe a reason for this is the idea of the fear of negative comments that can be a huge contribution to women not wanting to put themselves out there as much.